self publish technical book

Have you thought about contacting institutions like colleges or universities who may have their own publishing facilities?

ketanco said:

[FONT=&quot]I am an engineer and going to write a book in engineering. It will be for a specific niche of people but to them it will be useful, I know that. It will be about 250 pages, including text, some graphics and photos. I do not need anybody to edit it, or design any cover etc….[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]I intend to self publish. What steps do I take to self publish? and what is your suggestion to self publish? [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I intend to publish about 20 copies first, and then when it sells and get some reviews, 100, 500 more and so on… I don’t care if profit is nothing or little in the beginning.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Should I use an order fulfillment company? Or amazon? Create space?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I don’t want to have to mail them myself. This is not going to be practical. I want to automate the process. [/FONT]

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You don't know the process of self-publishing, but you don't want any editing or cover help? I feel I should be blunt and express that this sounds like a formula for failure. I'm not published, so I don't have any particular authority on this matter. Just the broad understanding that when I go into a major undertaking, I seek out the advice and the help of those with experience.

Anyway, have you looked at any guides to self-publishing? I ask because this is not a simple process if you want to maximize your odds of success. A forum thread isn't really an ideal place for all that information to come out. If you look at the subforum to which you've posted, it's a pretty big topic. Writer's Digest has a collection of guides to self-publishing. I've seen a couple of these at my local library. I'd recommend you start with something like that.

Writer's Digest also has an online guide at this link. And several print-on-demand (POD) publishers have guides of their own (that, naturally, direct you to their services) that can at least give you the broad picture.

I don't mean to sell Writer's Digest. I just frequent their forums, so I'm familiar with their offerings.

Once the book is ready to sell there is no real reason to only have 20 copies. The days of selling hardcopy books out of the boot of your car are gone. Now there is the internal, ebooks, and print on demand.

That said, there are very good reasons to take an engineering book via the trade publishing route. It is the kind of information people want to get from known and trusted sources after it has been subject to peer review.

You started a very similar thread to this in our Non Fiction room a month ago, ketanco.

You need to learn a lot about publishing before you commit yourself to this plan.

I am not convinced that you will not need to have your work edited: I know very few writers who produce good enough work even when they're established, let alone right at the start of their careers. Please be careful.